Painting Victory

This study reviews leadership theory and application, and assembles a heuristic model of leadership's macrocosm to inspire an appreciation of the broad spectrum of leadership styles and their varied effectiveness. Moreover, it outlines leadership's creative processes to further understanding. Considering the fundamental principles of leader theories, this research examined their application in team building, organizational management, and goal-setting methods. The literature review encapsulates the dominate theories and practices relating to leaders, groups, and goals. The analysis abstracts a broad expression of leadership as the art of guiding a group toward a goal. From this expression, it perceives the fundamental elements of leaders, groups, goals, and guidance. Then it designs a model that incorporates those elements and illustrates how they interact. Finally, a historical discussion guides a demonstration of the painting-leading model. In this way, theory is linked to the model, then the model is linked to application, completing a bridge from theory to application. Reviewing Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory at Trafalgar and General George Patton's victory at Bastogne, this study describes the creative process of leading groups towards goals by creating cohesion, purpose, and productivity.